Verschillen in hart- en vaatziekten en risicofactoren in verschillende contexten en effectiviteit van een multi-component interventie om primaire preventie te verbeteren.

Despite advancement in technology and healthcare systems, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain the leading causes of mortality worldwide. In Europe, CVDs cause more deaths than any other condition. Recently, mortality due to CVDs is rising in low- and middle-income countries as well. Enormous inequality exists in CVD morbidity and mortality across contexts and socioeconomic gradients, indicating people with low socioeconomic status are more vulnerable. Thus, identification of most vulnerable groups, and development and implementation of contextualized intervention is crucial to halt the continuing disparities and to decrease the overall burden globally. There is loads of literature on the risk factors and what should be done to prevent CVDs, but little is known regarding how to translate these findings from their controlled and academic setting to real-life context. Passive dissemination of guidelines alone is ineffective and results in subtle changes. Further implementation research is needed to identify high risk segments of the population and to develop and test various intervention approaches in different contexts. Thus, this project aimed to investigate socioeconomic disparities in terms of CVD and risk factors, and to evaluate implementation and effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention package in various contexts of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords:VULNERABLE GROUPS, PREVENTION, NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES, HEALTH PROMOTION

Disciplines:Health promotion and policy, Preventive medicine, Primary health care